


but darling, we've got to be silent

by saphinias



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 16:50:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/968294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saphinias/pseuds/saphinias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thoughts about Louis and Harry's fights from Niall's perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but darling, we've got to be silent

Niall hated having the room next to Harry and Louis.  They weren't the types to do things halfway, so on a good night they were loud.  On a bad night they were louder.  And it hurt to hear them struggling to keep their voices down, because did that mean they just flat out screamed at each other when they were at home?  It hurt to hear the strained silence after some of the fights, because if there was anything Harry and Louis weren't supposed to be, it was silent.

Which was ironic, because they would both love to want to be silent.  But it wasn't in their nature, they needed to shout and yell and scream everything at each other when they were having a bad night.  They need to be as loud as they wanted when they were having a good night.  They needed to be able to tell people about each other.  You could see it sometimes, how much one of them wanted to say something about the other.  In any number of conversations throughout the day, they wanted to burst out and say  _Louis did this_  or  _Harry said that_  and have it be a normal thing to say.

Hearing Harry and Louis fight was scary because if they couldn't do this, then how could Niall and Zayn and Liam?  If they weren't the perfect couple, then how was anything else in the world okay?  How did the world keep turning when Niall heard them shout things like  _I hate you_  and _I wish I had never met you_  at each other?

But Niall also saw them the morning after.  They were closer and softer and quieter with each other.  They hardly got a foot away from each other the whole morning.  Niall knew that sometimes they were still mad, that they hadn't finished last night.  Niall wondered why they did this, then.  Was it a show for themselves?  Or was it put on for Niall and Zayn and Liam?  Or was that how committed relationships worked, they loved each other right through the fight?  

Regardless of why they did it, it hurt to see them like that.  It wasn't sweet, it was sad.  To see them cling to one another like that after a fight.  Like they had nobody else they could depend upon, or trust.  The only person they trusted enough to confide in about their own conflict was each other.  It made Niall dizzy, the impact of that thought.  No matter how close they were to Harry and Louis, they would never understand what these years were like for them.  

Niall thinks that during those unresolved fights, they find the 'just friends' card easier to play.  It seems like they even convince themselves, laughing and joking and not an inkling of anything more in either of their eyes.  It exhausts them though, you notice that by the end of the day.  They trudge back to their room and you can see their hands and jaws clenching, can see them tensing for a fight.

Maybe a good way to describe Harry and Louis fighting is like seeing your parents fight.  They're such a constant in your life, it seems fundamentally wrong to see the two at odds.  To realize they are two separate people that at one time had two separate lives, and could have two separate lives in the future.  It feels wrong, like it would change Niall's life as well as everybody's around him.  But it's possible.  Always possible.  It makes Niall sick to his stomach to think about harryandlouis becoming Harry and Louis.  Because for Niall (and Liam and Zayn) they were never separate.  They didn't know them before they were together.  The  _other_  Harry and the  _other_  Louis.  

The wrong Harry and Louis.


End file.
